Monday, October 29, 2018

A clean, well-lighted place

On doing das Äusserste, the utmost, or the Utmost:


Franz Kafka, Letter to the Father, trans. Ernst Kaiser and Eithne Wilkins (New York: Schocken Books, 1966).

[Kafka’s definition of the utmost: “marrying, founding a family, accepting all the children that come, supporting them in this insecure world and perhaps even guiding them a little.” Kafka wrote this letter in 1919 and gave it to his mother Julie to give to his father Hermann. Hermann never received the letter. Max Brod gave the letter the title by which it’s known: Brief an den Vater. The father, not his, seinen.]

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